


without even a last desperate warning

by resonant_aura



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Other, everyone dies sometime, remember all those KOs when we were freaking out? they're back, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:26:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6986914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resonant_aura/pseuds/resonant_aura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vox Machina has survived many perils to come to the current point of their story, but there were many moments when the path diverged and the story changed. These are a few of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	without even a last desperate warning

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All the people and places you recognize are the intellectual property of their respective creators--the ENTIRE cast of Geek & Sundry’s fantastic webstream show Critical Role. Title is from "The Last Unicorn" by America.
> 
> "The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it."--Mary Catherine Bateson

This is what happens.

Vex doesn’t get to the ground in time. The pendant, slippery in her hand, tumbles from her grasp, swept away by wind and gravity and uncertain grip. There is a moment when she looks at Grog in horror, in realization, but he isn’t looking at her. He’s looking at the downward swing of a goliath’s axe—someone he knew? someone who recognizes him?—and then he’s baring his teeth at his uncle, baring them to the sky, after Kevdak sweeps Grog’s legs out from under him.

He _is_ looking at her when they cut off his head.

There’s a messy, rough roar from the mob of bloodthirsty barbarians who descend on his still-warm body, and rising over it like the pure soprano notes of a bird over the rumbling bass of a river, Pike’s scream cuts the air.

There is no moment to react, no moment of stillness, although it feels like there should be. Vex is flying towards Percy, meaning to snatch him from the rooftops, but before she gets there a wild-looking elf comes up behind him and strikes him behind the ear. He falls—not bonelessly, he’s not unconscious, no, but he’s already past her reach, already out of her hands—he skids and tries to catch himself but he falls, down to the cobbles, with a painful thud she swears she can hear over the din of—the din—

 _Vax_ , she thinks, but she has no idea where he is now, lost track of him in the fray, and she can see Pike being dragged away from her meager shelter against the wall, dragged into the bloodbath. She looks for Scanlan—for Vax—Keyleth—and sees only the glitter of sunlight on raised blades.

She can’t see from here. Even with her ranger’s sight she’s blind, but she can’t leave them.

Vex squeezes her eyes closed for half a heartbeat, feels the blood thrumming in her veins and tries not to think _Enjoy it while you can,_ and then angles the broom down.

She dives.

She doesn’t see the giant eagle diving just above her.

-

This is what happens.

There is a shout from Percy, a gasp from Zahra and Keyleth as they’re both buffeted by the sharp pulse of pure magical energy that arcs out from across the room. Then there’s silence, and then the scattered, scraping patters of rapid footfalls on stone. Vax hauls himself over the lip of the crevasse, glancing around. Kima steps aside, and he sees everyone gathered around something closer to the wall—except for Percy, sprawled on the floor, staring in a daze.

“What’s going on?” Vax demands breathlessly. He looks back and forth, looks around for his sister. Percy’s head turns toward him with a terrifying slowness. Then he’s up and bolting, scrambling through the pack, not even paying attention to Vax anymore.

“Kash, do something!” Zahra says, her usual cool demeanor rattled by something. Is it a monster, is it a trap, what the hell—

“Kashaw!” Keyleth. What the hell does everyone want with the cleric all of a sudden?

He climbs out of the pit, and he sees Zahra, collapsed and huddled on the floor. And he sees Vex’ahlia, pale as ice, pale as death, cradled in the tiefling’s arms, utterly motionless.

Unconscious?

“What the fuck happened?” he breathes.

“Kash, Kash, Kash,” Zahra moans, her blank white eyes staring at the grim-faced human, staring through him.

“I can raise the dead,” Kashaw intones, staring down, but not moving.

Raise the dead.

Raise the _dead_.

His feet move before his mind says _walk_ , he falls to his knees before gravity can catch him, his sister is in his arms before Zahra can fight him off. “What happened? What happened?” he demands, not listening for replies. “I was only down there for thirty seconds!” His fingers close around the slick glass of a healing potion before he can think _heal_ , he’s popped the stopper and poured it in her mouth before the words _she’s gone_ ever have a chance to breathe. The liquid dribbles over her cheek and down her neck into her hair. She does not move. “The _fuck!_ ” he howls, “is going _on_!”

“Do it,” Percy growls, and they are hands reaching for Vex, reaching for Kashaw, reaching for someone, but Vax fights them off tooth and nail. They’re invasive, greedy, hateful hands, they don’t know her like he does, they can’t fix her like he can—

“Vax,” Zahra murmurs, pulling his arms back, making room for the cleric as he scatters diamonds over his sister’s chest and belly.

“No!” he roars, struggling against the clawed hands, “You _can’t!_ She isn’t dead, damn it, you can’t—”

“If I don’t, she stays dead,” Kashaw replies.

Scanlan is solemn and staring, hand in his pocket, fingering the statue of Pike. Keyleth is trembling, her wide eyes staring at Vex’s body. Grog lumbers up behind Vax, one meaty hand on the half-elf’s shoulder, and Percy is kneeling at Vex’s feet, staring at her like a man who’s seen his devils in the flesh. “Let me help,” he whispers, voice cracking and crumbling, and Kashaw nods once, sharply.

“And me,” Zahra murmurs, stepping away from Vax.

Vax wrenches away from Grog. “Don’t you dare,” he gasps. “Don’t you dare do this without me. She’s my _sister._ ”

“Fine,” Kashaw barks, “Just shut up and let me work!”

Kashaw stares into the diamonds, holds a strange metal symbol in his hands. Zahra lays her staff over Vex’s heart. Percy fumbles in his pockets and draws out the green glass they’d encountered in Whitestone, and flinches when he piles it on her body. White light spins into grey, into a vortex, and Vax knows nothing about magic but he can look at the burnished swirling lines of Sarenrae’s sigil on his glove and believe.

“Please,” he whispers to one goddess, and to another, he pledges with violence in his heart, “Take me instead, you raven bitch.”

The vortex spins and spins and spins.

And then it slows.

And it dissolves.

And Vex does not breathe.

“Is she—”

“Kash, can you—”

“What happened?”

In the yammering noise, Vax looks slowly up from his sister’s face—into Percy’s.

He stares into Vax’s eyes and whispers, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Vax draws his dagger and lunges.

-

This is what happens.

Fast. Cold. For Percy it feels like nothing—from sitting in the darkness watching his body move as from a tiny window, to another darkness with not even that. From dark to dark, from nothing to nothing.

For everyone else, it’s a blink between desperate rescue and death.

Grog slams the warhammer into Percy’s side, cracking ribs, shattering blood vessels, but also causing enough damage that Percy slips under, down to the floor in a comatose heap—fainted from the pain and no longer able to house the ghost sheltering within.

They’ve won, they think, they’ve saved him.

The ghost emerges, wisps of colorless mist against a colorless dungeon wall, and shrieks breathlessly at them. It turns and swipes down with ethereal claws. And though they look as if they’re made of air they find purchase, rend flesh and cloth alike, and knock the pistol from Percy’s hand.

He jolts with the impact. He does not take a breath. He does not groan, or defend himself, or react at all, but for his body moving with the force of the undead blows.

“Percival!” Cassandra cries. “Percy, are you all right?”

Vax darts from shadow to shadow and lines himself up with the ghost, flicks the daggers from his wrist to the undead’s face, and before it recovers runs forward to stand protectively over the gunslinger’s form. He hisses at the ghost silently, waiting for its move.

Scanlan runs forward, hand cone to his mouth, violet magic coalescing around his throat as he murmurs soft comforting words of recovery to Percy. He immediately launches into a scathing mockery of the ghost.

It isn’t until after the deformed spirit gapes, groans, and vanishes that they realize Scanlan’s healing spell had no effect.

The gnome runs over to Keyleth to aid her, Vax looks down at the fallen human, toeing him gently in the shin. “Oy Percival,” he says. “Buck up, de Rolo, we’ve got to keep moving.” He follows quick behind Scanlan, already reaching for bandages from his sleeves, administering salves and linen as tenderly as he can to the reeling Ashari.

“Percy?” Vex whispers, her eyes steady on his hair, his coat, his glasses. Her bow clatters to the ground as she staggers toward him. “Percival, darling, wake up.”

“C’mon Percy,” says Grog, shouldering Percy upright. They all sense it—the moment when Grog’s eyes go wide with shock, when the man who deals in strength and vitality as much as death and frailty suddenly reaches a realization. Grog gently lets Percy fall back to the ground and puts his head to the human’s chest.

“No,” Cassandra whispers through bloodless lips. No one heeds her. She was his sister, but he was _theirs_ for the last year and a half—theirs through darkness and blood and smoke, more theirs than he ever was hers.

Vax looks at Vex in a numb panic. Vex looks at nothing, just stands stock-still, unable to blink. Grog and Scanlan exchange wild-eyed glances. “Pike,” Grog whispers, but she isn’t there, and Sarenrae is far from where they are in the belly of the catacombs.

They bring Percival de Rolo with them. They can’t leave him here, even though he would be at rest with his family, his people, appropriate as he would say—they take him down into the Ziggurat, and Vex stands guard over his body while they face off against the Briarwoods.

Perhaps that is why they lose.

-

This is what happens.

The plan did not go according to plan at all. Vax’ildan, clever and troublesome as he is, crept into their rooms thinking he could spy. But you do not spy on vampires unless you are very, very good.

Asum is that good. Vax’ildan is not.

The Seeker watches as the rogue tries to charm his way out, to bluff his way out, to duck and dodge and escape—and he does, tumbling through the window to the manicured lawns of the palace below, but Sylas and Delilah are quick to follow, eager for the kill, ready for the fall.

On the one hand, if he remains quiet—hidden, observing from above—and witnesses the intentional murder of a member of the Royal Council, perhaps then there would be enough initiative to have the Briarwoods removed from Emon. Enough evidence to separate them from the Emperor and perhaps give him time to discover their true motives.

On the other, this is Vox Machina we’re talking about.

He’s a damn fucking fool just like this unlikely band of heroes—but he can’t afford to sit this out. Whatever would Vex’ahlia think?

And so Asum charges into battle (which is a terrible idea, but no time for ideas at the moment) and hits the ground running, feints at Sylas, grabs Vax’ildan under one arm and heaves. He struggles with the bigger man’s weight, slipping on the wet grass, mad with the instinct to _run, get away, disappear_ —

Sylas smiles, a slow, dark thing, and reaches _over_ Asum’s head to stab his blade down into Vax’s shoulder. “That’s one,” he murmurs over Vax’ildan’s choking gasp. Asum drops Vax, desperate, reaches for the bolt of a crossbow—“You know you needn’t do battle with us,” the lord says, gesturing to the rogue lying still on the ground. “After all— _he_ is the criminal here.”

Asum blinks, can’t get enough air for a dizzying moment, and then he realizes Sylas is _right_. Vax’ildan, a known rogue and thief and burglar, broke into the rooms of the Emperor’s respected guests. Guests who had not done anything wrong, anything at all to raise suspicion. Why, they were the victims here.

“Of course,” Asum says, and steps back. “My apologies.”

Sylas grins—a puzzling reaction, but harmless. “That’s two,” he says.

Around the corner a tumult comes tumbling onto the grounds—Vex’ahlia, Grog, Percival de Rolo. All with weapons readied, Vex’ahlia screaming her brother’s name, screaming obscenities at the Briarwoods. Asum fades back to the wall and prepares his crossbow.

“That’s three,” Sylas murmurs, almost thoughtfully, and as Delilah sidles up to wrap her arm around his torso, he swings his greatsword down into the grass, into the body, and leaves a gaping slash in Vax’ildan from hip to shoulder. Asum can see the moonlight glittering on more than blood, on pale organs, on the white shattered flecks of bone. There is no way Vax’ildan could have survived that blow. He should not have interfered. If he had been smart he would be alive.

Vex’ahlia’s steps stumble and halt, and she falls to her knees. Percival releases a wordless howl of rage and pain and loss before unloading his pistol in Sylas’ direction. Asum swivels on his heel and sends a bolt through the lordling’s leg, striking him at the knee and sending him careening down into the grass. Vex’ahlia is sobbing, scrabbling at the dirt, trying to reach for her bow or her brother, it’s unclear which. A line of green light, some arcane magic, rips into her and sends her flying through the air like a rag doll. The goliath has gained the most ground, froth at his lips and blood in his eyes, but Sylas is more than a match for the barbarian. The Briarwoods together deal with him easily. Delilah points a finger to the dragonborn scowling above them in the window, and moments later Tiberius is gone, fleeing from the scene. Good. He is wiser than he seemed.

In the quiet, Asum waits to see if there is more death to be wrought, more justice to be served. In the distance, Percival is growling and cursing, fingers slipping uselessly over and over against the bolt in his leg, reaching for the gun that was thrown out of his grasp when Vex’ahlia was hit.

“That will do,” Delilah finally says, brushing her skirt clean of imagined detritus. She waves to the body of Vax’ildan, blood still sluggishly pooling around his limbs. “Seeker. Take care of that. Such an unsightly view does not seem like good hospitality to me.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“We shall speak with the Emperor about this unpleasant episode in the morning,” Sylas adds. “Come to bed, my love.”

“Of course.” Delilah smiles prettily into her husband’s face, and the two of them saunter off the field of carnage. The clatter of guardsmen approaching alerts Asum to the business at hand, what must happen next.

Slowly he walks over to Percival, stowing his crossbow across his back. The young man’s hands are crimson and glistening, blood smeared at the corner of one lens of his glasses, his teeth bared in a snarl. “Seeker,” he says through his grimace, “I thought you were better than this. To be snared by their charms.”

There is a flicker, like movement beneath a pool, like a bird crossing the sky in front of the sun—

“I thought you were heroes,” Asum replies sadly. He grabs Percival in a twist and wrenches his arms behind his back, secures them there with magical chains. “The prisons,” he directs the puffing guard who comes up.

“But—but that’s—” the guard stutters, eyes wide, face blanched.

“I know. The prisons, I said.”

“You’ll pay for this,” Percival says, but all the spittle and fire is gone from his voice, and his head hangs low. “All of you. The Briarwoods. Uriel. _Everyone_.”

Asum looks over the grass. The shadows are beginning to fold over the three bodies lying frozen in the grass. Three dead. One caught. Three on the run, as he imagines Tiberius has gone to warn the survivors. And one more besides in Vasselheim.

As he looks up past the castle grounds, over the silhouette of the city, he sees a shape slowly shrinking into the night sky—a giant winged creature, clutching a smaller humanoid form in its talons. Vox Machina never had been subtle.

“Dispose of the bodies,” he says in a low voice to a squad of guards. “Discreetly, please. This could panic the city.”

He has to go write a letter, bound for Vasselheim.

-

This is what happens.

Away from the earth, away from the sun, away from the land. Locked into a metal and stone box built by men, built centuries ago, infused with the sorrow and pain and lust and fury and despair of thousands upon thousands of captured souls, lost to time, lost to themselves, lost to law. Shattered into pieces, fragments of Vox Machina, split in two and staring into the void where their other halves should be staring back.

Her thoughts spin in a cycle. She sees a face that is unfamiliar. A woman’s, tear-stained, wrapped in braids from a style even older than she can remember. She sees Vax, knives out, face drawn, eyes blank with a faint silver-blue glow. She sees Thorbir and hears “I’m sorry about this.” _These are my friends,_ she shrieks, locked away, locked inside. _I love them, I don’t want to do this—!_

 _They hurt us,_ answers a new voice, something inside her but not _of_ her, _they hurt us they hurt us theyhurtustheyhurtustheyHURT_

 _Tiberius,_ she cries, _Tiberius, Vax, someone—_

_THEYHURTUS_

She swings for Kashaw and pulls on her arms, pulls like she’s trying to take a puppet from a child, and she imagines vines full of flowers wrapping around her wrists and her elbows and anchoring her to the stone. She misses. He’s safe a little while longer. She feels the staff rebound off the wall, splinters scratching her arms as they fly.

_Get out of me! Get out of me!_

“I take no pleasure in this,” Tiberius rumbles, and then it’s just pain, crushing, splintering, bludgeoning pain as she feels stone beneath and stone above and stone all around, grinding out blood and thought and life.

_theyhurt_

It’s only blackness.

What she does not see is her own limp, pale body falling and ricocheting against the floor, unresponsive. What she does not see is Vax, with blank eyes and rictus grin, rolling away from Tiberius’ summoned pillar and hissing eerily. What she does not see is Thorbir and Tiberius wrestling him into submission as Kashaw begins the ritual to turn away the undead, to ward them off with will and strength. What she does not see is Vax, slumped in his friends’ hold, exhausted and depleted but still lifting his head enough to look for her, to find her. What she does not see is Tiberius dropping Vax like a bag of chaff as he rushes over to the dying druid, picking her up, bellowing incantations, demanding that something be done.

What none of them saw, before it was too late, was Keyleth’s life slowly bleeding out into the cracks of the stone, lost to the bowels of man’s prison.

-

This is what happens.

The wind whistles, screeches, claws at their skin and ears as everything goes completely out of control.

The carpet is overwhelmed. The spells fail. They run out of time.

The war camp is ready for them.

Of all things, Scanlan was not expecting to die underground, crash-landing into a war camp of angry duergar. He was expecting to maybe rot in a jail, unfairly imprisoned, or die nobly fighting some monster waaaay bigger (but much less impressive) than him. This is maybe the _stupidest_ way to die. But of course he doesn’t get a say—he’s grateful for Vex’s arm wrapped tight around him, but she isn’t any more accustomed to sudden deadly impacts with the ground than he is. He bounces out of her grip almost immediately, his head hitting stone before the rest of him, and he’s out in a wink.

Percy hits the ground and skids to a halt, breathing shallow and glasses shattered.

Vax curses and hauls Pike to her feet. “Go to Scanlan, go, go!”

“I’ve got Scanlan,” Vex shouts, spitting gravel out of her mouth, already reaching for a healing potion. “It’s fine I’ve got him, go heal Percy.” So Pike scrambles up and past Vax, past Scanlan’s unconscious body, running on her short legs to Percy.

But none of them have got anything—because the war camp has got them.

First it’s the arrows. Crossbow bolts and arrows fletched with strange plumage rain down, two striking Percy where he lies and one coming dangerously close to Tiberius where he’s floating down to the ground. Pike falls to her knees with her holy symbol in one hand and her other reaching out to Percy. As the horde of duergar closes in and Vax and Grog stagger upright, wincing against the pain, readying their weapons, Pike blocks them out and casts a healing spell. And another. And another. In a panic she looks up at Grog. “Nothing’s happening!” she gasps, but it’s too late.

Vex is pawing through her packs and satchels. The leather and sacking are soaked and slick with oils—with healing salves, with healing potions. She flinches and withdraws her fingers, pricked and sliced by glass shards. The wound heals as soon as the blood wells, leaving a red smear on knitted skin. She keeps looking but _every_ bottle was shattered in the impact. Desperate, she upends the bag over Scanlan’s face—

“Don’t!” Tiberius commands, dropping down beside her. “The glass will do more harm than the potion will good!”

“But—” Vex’s head swings around. “Pike, please—”

But the duergar are there, looming, angry, confidant. Grog bellows a challenge. Vax flings his daggers out and dances back, back to his sister, snatching Pike’s collar on the way. “It’s too late,” he barks at the gnome, “You can’t, it’s too late.” Percy’s body is lost in the thicket of stout duergar legs churning toward them, and Pike sobs and tries to turn back to Scanlan, to make it that far, to heal _something_ —

Vax grunts and collapses, hand clutching at his belly, blood pouring out from between his fingers. Pike gasps and reaches for him instead, but she’s spun around and knocked off-balance by a powerful blow from a stone hammer. Grog charges. Tiberius is searching his robes for a potion. Vex is standing, bow taut, arrow ready, her face blotchy in the dim light of the cavern moss as she shoots arrow after arrow through a tide of tears.

It’s a long, long battle. The members of Vox Machina left standing at the end—Vex, Tiberius, and a slurry, barely-there Keyleth—drag who they can with them as they flee. Keyleth opens a chasm behind them and they run for safety behind a stone wall.

Gasping, bleeding, unable to think, the three of them crouch in the dark with their fallen friends in their laps.

They don’t think about Scanlan, or Percy, or Trinket.

They can’t.

They won’t.

-

The Draconian Knights don’t stand a chance against the onslaught of four ancient chromatic dragons. Mostly, if anyone asked Tiberius, because they were caught unawares. With proper intelligence they could have put up a powerful fight.

But no one can ask him, buried as he is under thousands of tons of crumbled marble and mountainside. And even if they could, he was incinerated before he could form an opinion.

-

With the sea salt air in her face, her hair blown back like a halo of flicker-fire feathers, Pike stares out across the line between sea and sky. She blinks, bright dancing afterimages of the setting sun painting over the blackness behind her eyes.

“Alright there, gnome?” calls one of the deckhands. She glances down from the rigging, eyes narrowed against the wind. “Your eyes got all off-like.”

“Just looking out,” Pike calls down, swinging from the ropes. Her holy symbol bumps against her collarbone, as if she needed reminding.

Back out at sea, the sun has fully sunk below the waves, leaving only an empty canvas of slowly fading orange and gold and purple in its wake. The fire has burned out, the glare dimmed to a glow. But she’s sure she saw it. She’s sure she looked into the sun and saw through it, saw _with_ it, the blood-tinged moments (memories? dreams?) that Sarenrae herself had funneled through the spray to Pike.

Pike shudders, then resolutely stores the images in a dark place where they can’t trouble her. Vox Machina will be fine. She’ll return to them—when they’re ready, when she’s ready.

It will all be fine.


End file.
